The Estrangement Principle Featured on Public Books: On Our Nightstands July 2017

08/01/2017

The Estrangement Principle Featured on Public Books: On Our Nightstands July 2017

Heather Love, the Sexuality Section Editor for Public Books selected The Estrangement Principle by Ariel Goldberg for the series On Our Nightstands: July 2017

“No, my practice isn’t about ‘queerness,’ I just make art and it’s about life.” Artists refuse labels in order to claim broad relevance for their work, but in the process end up disavowing the histories that matter to them most. Rarely has this paradox been explored with such fervor and intelligence as in Ariel Goldberg’s 2016 The Estrangement Principle. Goldberg, a NYC-based “trans-dyke” poet and artist, pursues an obsession with queer history, all the while putting intense pressure on the term “queer.” What is queer? “A definition might sail me out of the storm of ambivalence,” Goldberg writes. Instead, we get real-time reports from the storm: an “excruciating” public conversation with Fran Lebowitz; a protracted struggle with the word “lady” in the title of a Brooklyn literary salon; a “seething” relationship to a library copy of Art and Queer Culture (2013). Goldberg balances the desire for community with recognition of the necessity of estrangement, meanwhile hungrily absorbing queer art—“like I would devour a sandwich on the subway.”